Typography is a fundamental element of web design. Varieties of fonts to utilize on your website or blog, while often overlooked, can have a large effect on how well they are received!

For the webmaster or blogger, sourcing the right font(s) for a project can be a quite difficult task. While there are hundreds or maybe thousands of pre-installed on most of the modern-day computers, many of them have been overused over the years. And due to that, they can look outdated and unprofessional.

What’s more, tons of these fonts are practically unreadable and if you are designing a logo or any may be for the content on your website, they are just not brandable or unique enough.

Now it is possible to acquire some beautiful fonts online. However, these come at a cost. They can cost around $50-$100 on a premium typeface for your website or, particularly if you are only planning to use it once.

But if you are planning to use them for a long term then they are not efficient. Google Fonts solve these issues by offering you a free, and Open Source resources. This resource contains a family of 600 different fonts that you can use all for free of charge in any of your websites or blogs. Many of them are not that great, but still, there are some of the gems that you can use on your site.

Here I have collected few of the quality, highly-readable, legibility, versatility and beautiful typefaces available for free of charge in the great Google Fonts Open Source Library.

15 Fantastic Highly-Readable Google Fonts

Merriweather font is an incredibly attractive and beautiful font, which looks perfect on any device such as Desktop, Smartphone, and Tablet. They are designed to be a text face which is pleasant to read on screens. Merriweather font family offers four different font styles Regular, Light, Bold, Italic and Black all of that feature sharp serifs and mildly condensed letterforms.

There are also two versions available those are Merriweather Sans and a Merriweather Sans-serif. Eben Sorkin designs this font.

Merriweather font choice is ideal for any blog or news-related website. Merriweather Sans font gives more premium feel than Times New Roman or other Serif or Sans-serif typefaces. It even works extremely well for the portfolio sites perhaps for digital agencies, freelancers or photographers.

Open Sans font was designed by Steve Matteson and contains ten different styles, from light to extra bold. The font is very simple, professional and clean, but yes it is exciting. This font has many subtle characteristics like the capital J with a descender which goes beyond the baseline. It looks beautiful in both small and larger sizes. However, the extra bold variation is natural perfection.

There is even an Open Sans Condensed version which comes in three different styles. Open Sans Google font contains a complete character set of 897 that includes the standard ISO Latin 1, Latin CE, Cyrillic and Greek character sets. This font is ideal for print, web and mobile interfaces and even has excellent legibility characteristics in its letterforms.

Lato font is maybe one of the unique and fascinating sans-serif fonts in this list. It was designed by Lukasz Dziedzic and adds ten different font styles, which goes from thin, light, regular, bold and ultra-bold. Even there is an italic version of each of the font-weights.

The letters in this font type have few unique semi-rounded details of letters that can only be used in larger sizes. It not that this font doesn’t work properly in smaller sizes, it’s just that the font loses few interesting properties when done so.

Christian Robertson designed this Roboto font. This is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface that is developed for the Android operating system. It includes thin, light, regular, medium, bold and black style with matching oblique styles.

This font is very modern and importantly combines the best elements of classic fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and Univers. There are two other incredible variations of this font condensed that has six styles and Roboto Slab with four styles. However, for it, there is no oblique version released yet.

Vernon Adams design this Oswald font. It is a reworking of the classic style historically represented via the ‘Alternate Gothic’ sans-serif typefaces. Oswald font is intended to be utilized freely across the internet via web browsers on desktop, mobile devices, and tablet. This font is initially reformed to fix the pixel grid of standard digital screens.

PT Sans font was designed by ParaType Company that is based on Russian sans serif. PT Sans font has distinctive functions of contemporary humanistic designs. The PT Sans font family consists eight styles wherein four basic styles, two captions styles for small size and two narrow styles for industrial type setting.

Anton Koovit designs Arvo font. It is geometric Slab serif typeface which is ideal for screen and print. However, the flavor of this font is somewhat mixed because they are nearly monolinear to optimize legibility.

EXO font is a contemporary geometric Sans Serif typeface that is designed by Natanael Gama. The EXO font family was initially funded by a Kickstarter project and soon afterward released for free to the world.

The EXO font has 18 styles, so with this versatile font, you shouldn’t run into problems with not having a perfect weight. However there is only one issue with this font, it is little hard to read when small. This is practical because it has many shapes and curves in its letterforms.

EXO 2 font family is essentially the next version of the EXO font which is the original version. This font is very similar to the original version but it is a lot more legible at small sizes. Are you planning on using this font in the body copy? Then EXO 2 font is surely a better solution.

Vollkorn Font is designed by German designer, Friedrich Althausen. This is a strong Serif font which has quite a bold and eye-catching look on it, particularly when it used in larger font sizes. Vollkorn Font is suitable for use on mobile and tablet screens, as it remains highly readable also in small sizes.

It is available in regular and bold style. There are italic versions of each font-weight too. The bold version of Vollkorn font is working specifically well for H1-H3 HTML tags as this font has an eye-catching and fairly dominant appearance.

Droid Sans font is part of the Droid fonts series consisting of Droid Sans, Droid Serif, and Droid Sans Mono. Droid Sans font was originally designed for use on the Android system. However, it’s designed Steve Matteson even designed corporate faces not only for Android but also for Citrix, Microsoft, Xbox, and Nextel.

If you find yourself often using fonts like Arial, Verdana, and Georgia, then Droid Sans font family is the perfect alternative for you. This font is available in two styles regular and bold. It works well in headings and subheadings on magazine-style sites. And the high readability level makes this font ideal for use on mobile optimized websites as well.

However, Source Sans Pro font may not be the most exciting one, but it is probably the most professional. It works in every situation, and even it maintains legibility with every size whether it is small or large size.

Andrey V. Panov designed Istok Web font. However, this font only includes a regular, bold and italic version of each weight. So if you are seeking for many different weights, then this is not for you for sure.

However, Gravitas Font looks only great in medium and large sizes, in small size it loses its legibility. Even there is the only style, and it is regular. If you are looking for many different weights, then this font is probably not for you.

Montserrat font is a beautiful and fresh looking typeface, which has a somewhat urban visual style. Julieta Ulanovsky designs it. It is used in minimalist designs such as film posters and even in the web projects as well.

This Montserrat font consists 18 different styles with weights ranging from thin to ultra-bold. So if you are looking for some font that offers tons of weights, then you should try out this font. It remains highly readable at relatively small sizes and even with the bold font version. It is a beautiful and stylish font that is sure to carry much-needed life to any modern, urban design.

Conclusion

On the face of it, it might seem Although Google Fonts have little to offer. However, when you delve deeper, there are some highly readable and beautiful typefaces that you will find. As I have mentioned above, there are 600 typefaces in Google Fonts library, and more are expected to be included over the coming years. So bookmark the Google Fonts Library, and it will be useful for many projects.

Nikhil Makwana is the co-founder of BforBlogging. He is a passionate blogger and turned blogging into a money making ideas for smart passive income. He writes and shares about starting and managing a blog, WordPress, Promotional Tips, Tools and making money online.